Once again the French appropriate

In the most generalizing and stereotypical way possible, one can divide most indie-rock bands into two broad categories: the 'always building up to something' band, and the 'something important is happening right now' band. The French electronic band M83 belongs to the latter category. Its second full-length Dead Cities, Red Seas, & Lost Ghosts creates a sound that is as big as an ocean (or a sea?) and as depressingly ephemeral as, uh, a ghost. \nM83 is an electronic duo that uses common electronic instrumentation -- synthesizers, drum machines -- to create music on top of which Robert Smith or even, at times, Ian Curtis might have laid their vocals. The music is unrelenting in its intensity. Yet the refusal of M83 to give its listeners even a few moments of rest gets tiring, as the album is more than an hour long and emotionally engaging throughout. M83's intensity can be, in part, attributed to its use of such mundane electronic instrumentation, with samples so familiar, it's as if some '80s pop song has come back, French-style, to haunt the listener. Dead Cities is ultimately an emotionally consuming, elegiac album, that may escape the ears of many but will surely find it's way into the hearts of all its true listeners.